


Where Loyalties Lie

by MoreHuman



Category: Veronica Mars (TV), Veronica Mars - All Media Types
Genre: Canon Compliant, Dialogue Heavy, Gen, Missing Scene
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-15
Updated: 2019-09-15
Packaged: 2020-10-19 10:31:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,476
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20655755
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MoreHuman/pseuds/MoreHuman
Summary: “If you want, I can set you up with a real man’s bike.”“I’ve flown a real man’s jet, thanks.” Logan shrugs. “Crotch rockets don’t really hold any allure for me.”I really wanted a Season 4 scene with these two pushing each other’s buttons, so I decided to write it myself.





	Where Loyalties Lie

Logan recognizes the place as soon as his bike rounds the corner. He picked Veronica up here once, junior year, in that yellow monstrosity he loved so much. It was during the “secrets are hot, too” phase of their early relationship, right before his dad threw the surprise birthday party that became a surprise for everyone. Veronica had told him to meet her out back of Weevil’s uncle’s shop, but he’d done a couple laps around the block first, squealing his tires and revving his engine, dying to be noticed.

He hadn’t remembered the address all these years later, but it wasn’t too hard to find. Unlike most of the shop’s business, Weevil’s purchase from his uncle had happened on the books, and you don’t have to be an intelligence officer to read public records. 

This time he uses the front entrance. He hops off his bike halfway into the parking lot, before it’s fully come to a stop, leaning into the handlebars for balance. He spots Weevil immediately, even though his back is turned. He’s not built the same as teenage Weevil, but there’s something unmistakable in the wave of his arms as he berates a scrawny kid in a hoodie over by the door to the garage. Or maybe it’s just the neck tattoos that give him away.

The scrawny kid locks eyes with Logan and nudges Weevil, visibly relieved at the distraction. There’s residual annoyance on Weevil’s face when he turns around, then he sees Logan and the annoyance deepens. The scrawny kid seizes his moment and scampers inside.

Logan raises a hand in silent greeting and waits. He knows that letting the target open the conversation and set the tone is the best way to get information.

Weevil takes a few steps toward him, casting his eyes all over as if trying to decide where to begin. They land on his bike.

“Hey, bro,” Weevil says in his best surfer voice. “Your convertible shrank.”

Logan has to fight off a grin of satisfaction. This is an opening volley he can work with. “Yeah, like I’d risk bringing anything with an engine in here. Something tells me they don’t tend to come back out.”

“If you want, I can set you up with a real man’s bike.”

“I’ve flown a real man’s jet, thanks.” Logan shrugs. “Crotch rockets don’t really hold any allure for me.”

Weevil crosses his arms and nods slowly. He’s silent for a bit as if intent to pass the verbal football, but Logan and his military-grade patience refuse to pick it up.

“So you wanna tell me why you’re here?” Weevil finally asks, and Logan’s pleased to detect a hint of curiosity in his exasperation. “Please don’t say it’s to apologize for how racist you were back in high school. If Logan Echolls is woke now, it’s really going to mess with the arrangement of my dartboard photos.”

“I’m sorry, you must have me confused with someone else.” Logan raises a hand to his chest in mock offense. “I was never racist in high school. Some of my best enemies were Latinx.”

“Well, I speak for all of us when I say it was a genuine pleasure.” There’s another, shorter pause, and when Weevil speaks again the curiosity is dissipating. “So did you just come down here to rekindle what we once had, or what?”

Logan’s interrogation instincts warn him not to lead with the truth, but he decides to lean in that direction. “Veronica mentioned she was here the other day, I’m just curious what the two of you talked about.”

The scoff and head shake combo, like the neck tats, remains unchanged from high school Weevil.

“You know, you white people should try talking to each other once in a while. You can’t expect us brown folks to do all your manual _and_ emotional labor for you. Pick one.”

“I’ve actually gotten pretty used to doing my own manual labor,” Logan replies, thinking of all the sheets he’s folded into hospital corners, all the surfaces he’s scrubbed with a toothbrush. “My boss kind of insists on it.”

“What’s between me and V is between me and V. I feel like if she wanted you to know what her little visit was about, she’d have told you herself.” A grin spreads slowly, irrepressibly across Weevil’s face. “But we stopped sleeping together months ago, if that’s what you’re asking.”

Logan knows he said it just to piss him off, but it still almost works. It’s funny how Lilly’s ghost can abandon him for years, and then suddenly she’s breathing down his neck. He can tell without even glancing down at his handlebars that his knuckles are whitening around them.

“And that little shit PCHer that mugged her the other morning? Just your way of saying you missed her?”

“Aren’t you a little old to still be playing girlfriend protector?”

“I’m a little overqualified, too.” Logan’s suddenly at his full height—an ancient muscle memory, now with Naval muscle tone. “Wanna try me?” 

Weevil answers with a smirk that punctures Logan’s anger instantly, deflating it down to nothing. “You know I’d love to, but… I’m guessing your boss also kind of insists that you don’t go throwing those government-issue fists around just for funsies? Doesn’t seem like a fair fight.”

And just like that, Logan’s upper hand is gone. Now the truth is his only option.

“Look,” he sighs and wipes a hand across his face. “I’m just trying to figure out how worried I need to be. I’m not around much these days, and I sleep better at night knowing how many friends my—” a tiny stumble as a diamond ring flashes across his mind, “girlfriend has left in this town.”

“Well, your girlfriend doesn’t seem to be too worried about how many friends she has left.”

“Yeah, no shit. Why else do you think I’d be here?”

Weevil pauses. If he’s tempted to give a snarky response to the question, he decides against it. “My days doing favors for Veronica Mars are over,” he says, “but I’ve never been the one out to get her and I don’t plan to start now. Maybe if she’d ever trusted me on that, we would still be friends.”

Logan doesn’t mean to laugh, but he does—a low, sad chuckle.

“What’s so funny?”

“Oh nothing, I just didn’t expect we’d have anything to bond over after all these years. I, too, have been reflecting of late on the many times Veronica has withheld her trust from me.” Logan squints sideways at him. “She ever turn you in for murder?”

Weevil’s silence is genuine this time, not a calculation. He doesn’t know what to say.

“Yeah, that one smarted. It was a long time ago, though. Bygones, you might say.” 

Logan doesn’t add the reason he’s been thinking about this. He’d been prepared for Veronica to reject his proposal, though he’d hoped she wouldn’t. That she’s refusing to believe he actually meant it—means it—is almost too much to bear.

“I’m sorry, is this some kind of competition?” Weevil asks.

“It’s not, but to be clear: If it were, I’d win. While we’re sharing, though...” He hears Therapy Logan entering his voice and wonders whether Veronica would feel betrayed or amused to know that he can subject Weevil to this, too. “My therapist says people who’ve suffered trauma in adolescence often develop what’s called an avoidant attachment style. Apparently they tend to cast the people they care about as the bad guy whenever they can so they feel justified keeping them at arm’s length.”

Weevil’s wearing an expression that Logan has come to cherish over the last decade or so. It’s the appraising bewilderment of someone trying to square the version of Logan Echolls in front of them with the one they knew long ago. He used to only get this look in uniform, but if he’d known talking about therapy would get the same result, he would have made that first appointment with Jane years sooner.

“Then again,” Logan continues, “if Veronica trusted easily would people like you and me even be interested in earning it? I don’t know… What does your therapist say?”

“If I could afford one, she’d probably say I should stop wasting my energy on assholes from my past.”

Logan suppresses something—a wince, a grin, he’s not sure. “I guess that’s my cue to leave. Nice catching up.” 

He’s almost back out to the street when Weevil calls after him, “Yo, rich boy! If I do end up doing Veronica another favor, just know it’s for her. Not for you.”

Logan looks back and smiles the kind of smile that channels the movie star in his DNA. “I wouldn’t dream of asking for more, Weevs.”

Then he pedals home to Veronica, feeling a little lighter.


End file.
